Re: app-defaults vs. Xresources
>The files in the directory "app-defaults" are read-only to remember the
>sysadmin that they are not intended for modification. They document all
>possible settings and are defaults (if you modify them, they won't be
>defaults any longer). There is nothing Linux- or Debian-specific about
>this.
Interesting interpretation... I have never before seen indications
that app-defaults files are not to be modified (although I do agree
with some of the hazards of modifying them). Certainly not in any of
the X11 programming books I have.
>If you never modify the files, you won't have any trouble when upgrading
>software for X11: the software can just overwrite the old defaults, no
>special actions must be taken.
For a few of the X11 apps, the information in these files is 'broken',
as far as the local setup goes. I can fix the problem on the
app-defaults side (fixing the problem on the client side (client in
'X11' terms)), or changing Xresources, which being a server side fix
only fixes the problem
The problem is the app has incorrect 'defaults', and I believe the
solution is to fix the problem with the app, and not attempt to fix
the problem by changing Xresources on any possible display people
might be trying to run the app from. Fix that which is broken, when
possible, no?
>"Overwriting" the default settings through a seperate Xresources-file has
>further advantages:
>
> - your changes are documented (even without comments),
> - the changes are easy to survey,
> - the changes are easily portable to a friends machine.
Disadvantage is that then this change only affects the local display,
as I discussed
>> I can't really "upgrade" machines outside my site, can I?
>
>Of course, you can. Just let /etc/X11/Xresources be a link into
>/usr/local/etc/Xresources on every NFS-client you serve (and even on the
>NFS-server). If you edit /etc/X11/Xresources on the master machine, it
>will affect every other machine, too.
No... I am not talking about my own clients... A large number of
accounts of my machine are accessed from sites well outside of *any*
control of mine (well outside of *.umn.edu). Am I to say that to run
programs correctly on my machines you need to be running on one of my
machines (which is what you are saying)?
Quite often I see app-defaults and Xresources files treating as
interchangeable, and my point that they are *not*, since one provided a
mechanism for changing the resources on the client side, and one
provides a mechanism for changing them on the server side.
--
Richard W Kaszeta Graduate Student/Sysadmin
bofh@bofh.me.umn.edu University of MN, ME Dept
http://www.menet.umn.edu/~kaszeta
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